11/11/2020

How to Maintain a Perfect Garden

Jon Gordon's book, The Garden teaches us how to overcome Doubt, Distortion, Discouragement, Distractions, and Division to find more peace, focus, connection, and happiness.

Every month, our team reads a different book that focuses on any number of different topics or themes. These themes have included messages that focus on things such as maintaining a positive attitude, teambuilding, and constantly moving forward in the right direction. We always pick books that not only can help our team continue to grow and be successful together, but books that help us as individuals as well. This month, we decided to read The Garden by Jon Gordon.

This book is a story of a man who helps two twin teenagers (say that 10 times fast) overcome the 5 D’s of life (Doubt, Distortion, Discouragement, Distractions, and Division) in order to find more peace, focus, connection, and happiness. He taught his lessons to the twins while sitting in the beautiful garden he had grown in the backyard of his home. Much of the book focuses on how building the perfect garden is very comparable to building the perfect life. Now I don’t know about you, but I struggle with overcoming these 5 D’s all the time! They can lead to things such as fear, stress, anxiety, and any number of other mental or physical struggles people are forced to deal with on a daily basis. The good thing for me is that after reading this book, I feel like I have some ways to combat them!

One of the most damaging things that the 5 D’s in life can cause people is anxiety, and one of the most impactful lines that I read in the book was, “Anxious means Divide and Divide leads to Defeat.” The author then explained in his own words that you must constantly be weeding out the negative from your life (i.e., the bad things from your garden) in order to ensure that you have the best life (i.e., the most beautiful garden) possible. That message truly resonated with me, and out of all the lessons in the book, it is that simple reminder that will stick with me moving forward. Having a great life is not just getting over one bad thought or one bad day. Having a great life is about constantly maintaining and working on your mental well-being, because that is what will ultimately lead to long-term happiness.